After Billions Spent Rebuilding Iraq, Russia And China Are Gaining Ground There

With Iraq engulfed by mass protests, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s first visit to the country since 2014 went mostly unnoticed. It didn’t help that Moscow’s top diplomat revealed little about his conversations with his Iraqi counterparts — a fact that the Russian press interpreted as a sign that that they had discussed sensitive issues such as new arms deals and Turkey’s intervention in northern Syria.